The Tokugawa Campaign Guide

[Lowes]

I'm currently about to enter the end-game of a Tokugawa Campaign on hard; I'm a few notable actions away from the realm divide; here's how I made it up to this point.

1) Obviously crushing Oda is a must, there's no other way. If you win a decisive enough victory, Imagawa will be spooked, if they do not betray you outright, they will cancel your trade agreement.

2) I betrayed Imagawa due to the lack of trade; my plan was to wait for them to betray me but I had no choice - how did I recover from the hit to my Daimyo's honour? One was sheer luck; I gained a retainer that gave my Daiymo +1 honour; the other was turning the tables. After crushing an Imagawa stack that tried to ambush me, they accepted peace and vassalization - which increases your Daimyo's honour.

3) Backstabbing Imagawa usually brings you into a war against Takeda and Hojo; two factions that you should be able to blitz quickly if you can keep the Ikko-Ikki and Hattori threat to your rear at bay. Build up Owari and make it a defensive center, literally spam Ashigaru there. On the diplomatic front, play upon Hattori's fears of Ikko Ikki (which you will almost certainly end up in a war in); keep the ambitous Hattori at bay by securing an alliance with them and join the war against Ikko Ikki. Sit idly by and let Hattori get crushed, and stay on the defensive w/ Ikko Ikki. They have too many enemies; they will expand and contract and generally hurl sub-par and easily defeated stacks at you.

4) You will have to blitz often, use your superb Metsuke to their full effect in this regard, following in the path of your army, overseeing rowdy new real estate. Further, pinch - pennies, and get used to winning battles with armies predominantly made of Ashigaru; protect the few Samurai you have jealously in battle. Taking Kai will give your army a respectable cavalry corps.

5) Finally....monitor your fame. When you reach the 'Acclaimed' status, settle your differences, assume a defensive posture. Depending on how long its taken you to reach this point; give yourself 4-12 turns to build up a professional army of Samurai, build roads if you haven't already, and begin disbanding less experienced and damaged Ashigaru units to support the professionalization of your military. When the descends, get ready to use Owari to catapult you towards Kyoto.

One more additional note, although I suspect my vassals will all betray me come the Realm Divide, they are all destitute and weak, having largely Ashigaru stacks. As a faction that will draw alot of aggro, I highly recommend you vassalize the larger enemies such as Hojo and Takeda when they are down single provinces. For example, my Takeda vassal is currently buffering me from a hostile Uesagei, my vassal Hojo is buffering me from a juggernaut Ashina, which will be a huge horn in my side, and finally my vassal Kitabatake are buffering me from the Ikko-Ikki movement. Take the time to build a monestary near Owari after the realm divide, you will need it to cut through the Ikko Ikki fever.

As it stands now my Daimyo and Generals are all at max honour/loyalty, this coupled with the export of horses and stone as well as military might have made up for the long-forgotten hit to diplomacy taken - which is balanced somewhat to begin with given Tokugawa's +10 to diplomatic relations.

[O'Hea]

Vassals don't betray you automatically, but they do get a pretty large drain to relations (I wanna say it was -50 or something in that ballpark). In my games where I've hit RD most of them have stayed loyal for at least a few more years, and if you squash them and re-vassalize then the RD penalty is removed.

[CptAustus]

Vassals get the full RD penalty, I believe. -200 or something.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

Ikko Ikki are spamming armies by the turn in my campaign. They are a real pain.

[PaulV]

How do you get free of Imagawa on normal difficulty? Everyone says on hard they always betray, but on normal they never seem to betray, and you can't attack anyone as their vassal. I've tried to wait it out, but by the time someone else defeats them, everyone else's armies are too much stronger than yours to compete.

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[Greve Af Göteborg]

In my Tokugawa campaign (albeit on hard), I placed my army in the forest to the south-east of my capital, leaving only a very small garisson in the capital to entice the Imagawa to strike.
If it works, you'll ambush the Imagawa. So basically, just hide your troops make it look like easy prey.

[O'Hea]

In my Tokugawa campaign (albeit on hard), I placed my army in the forest to the south-east of my capital, leaving only a very small garisson in the capital to entice the Imagawa to strike.
If it works, you'll ambush the Imagawa. So basically, just hide your troops make it look like easy prey.

So basically, pull an Okehazama on them.

[PaulV]

Wow, I hadn't even thought of that. Thanks for the tip.

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[Man'o'War]

How do you get free of Imagawa on normal difficulty? Everyone says on hard they always betray, but on normal they never seem to betray, and you can't attack anyone as their vassal. I've tried to wait it out, but by the time someone else defeats them, everyone else's armies are too much stronger than yours to compete.

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I'm playing normal, 1st time through.
I didn't actually realise I was a vassal state for a good few turns. Once I realised I went all out to destroy them without worrying about honour etc.

I parked armies up on my borders and once happy marched on them. That bought their other mates into the war with me which is still going on. Even though my Daimyo has had one honour for most of the game I've had no real diplomatic or home troubles and was trading with every clan bar my two enemies right up until realm divide.

I think I'm on turn 93 or so now and my Daimyo has finally moved up to two honour (could be 3) due to either being Shogun or learned arts.

The important thing is not to spread your armies too wide or too far too quickly.

[siregar0511]

How do you get free of Imagawa on normal difficulty? Everyone says on hard they always betray, but on normal they never seem to betray, and you can't attack anyone as their vassal. I've tried to wait it out, but by the time someone else defeats them, everyone else's armies are too much stronger than yours to compete.

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I just started Tokugawa on N/N and about 5-6 years in now. The first turn I bribed the Oda's army and then moved quick to conquer them. The next 10 or so turn I rush to get zen and build a buddhist temple to create my first monk. I keep building ashigaru+bow ashigaru and while in the mean time I use my monk to start inciting revolts on neighboring provinces, including the imagawas. By turn 20 or so the Imagawa couldn't take it anymore. Between my ninja, monk and metsuke harassing their provinces They finally declared war on me and I crushed them in 3 turns with my full stack of ashigarus.

Afterward I forged an alliance with the Hattori and Saito(?) to secure my western and northern flank. I have a decent relationship with the Takeda who is running rampage on north-central Honshu. I'm planning an invasion of Hojo's territory and I'm unleashing my ninjas and monks to provoke rebellions and grab the provinces without the expansion penalty (if you grab a province from the rebel faction it doesn't count as an expansion).

[Man'o'War]

I noticed some people saying they're playing on vh vh settings. I'm playing VH but don't see an option for battle difficulty other than the restricted UI (which I'm using). Am I missing the battle difficulty switch somewhere or is VH VH what I'm already playing?

[DeMolay]

I noticed some people saying they're playing on vh vh settings. I'm playing VH but don't see an option for battle difficulty other than the restricted UI (which I'm using). Am I missing the battle difficulty switch somewhere or is VH VH what I'm already playing?

During the campaign , you can press "escape" key at any time , and then go into "game settings" , then you will see a slider which is dedicated to battle difficulty where you can set it however you want

[AwkwardMoment]

Rough start to my first Tokugawa campaign:

Not too much problem getting to Oda by bribing their army and getting them to come out of their castle... but as soon as I captured the province, Hottari, the Shogunate and somebody else declared war. I holed up in the castle and was hoping to survive by spamming ashigaru until my research was more advanced... but next turn, Imagawa declares war with Takeda & Hojo allied to him.

Heroic battle ensues in Mikawa with my Daimyo stuck with some yari ashigaru and not one bow unit (about 580 total units) against around 1100 Imagawa bastards. I somehow managed to survive that... with 6 guys left in my Daimyo unit! Imagawa was able to escape about 125 units.

Not sure where to go from here... I guess I have to keep spamming yari to have bodies to throw at anybody incoming... and hope I can survive until I get the ninja and metsuke.

Should I try something different? Suggestions?

[Dom Afty]

Is it just me, or since the latest patch is a Tokugawa campaign the hardest on the game? I play on Hard, because anything above makes it near impossible to maintain alliances or friendly borders.

I've restarted several times and can't get the Imagawa to betray me, even if I wage a ninja war on their buildings and assassinate as many generals as I can. Another difficulty I have is getting a good ally. Being focused on the middle of the map can leave you surrounded by superpowers to the north and south come realm divide.

[Reinf]

Well I started a H/H campaign and I managed to bribe and scare Oda so they could survive turn 1
After that, I ran to take his capital and just turtled until I saw that Imagawa shockingly led war on Takeda.
and he requested me to join, I obviously saw this as a easy way to get out of his vassalage so I said HELL NO.
and surprisingly didn't get a penalty in diplomacy, quickly I got an alliance with Takeda and Hattori and declared war on Imagawa. Captured their weak cities with a half stack and became plotting on the shogunate. Today I'm gonna think of reaping hell on Saito who is at war with everyone.

[Tigellinus]

Ikko Ikki are spamming armies by the turn in my campaign. They are a real pain.

I know! I had to gather all my resources and go from sacking one city to another always one step ahead of their marauding forces! Every province I take my army becomes more depleted, and with every unit I lose I find it more difficult to take te next province. Thankfully Takeda declared war on them so mayhap I shall survive this war. Best of luck to you!

[Tokugawa-Ieyasu]

I started playing Shogun 2 again after some time, use to play allways with the Oda Clan but this time i wanted a new and harder challenge. So i begin playing with in my opinion the most difficult faction in the game, the Tokugawa that ironically was the stronger clan in real life but they had to survive through hard times.
After playing i began to read about Tokugawa campaign in different forums, and how people manage to get through this hard campaign. No one think to do the same as in real life? For me the best way to start this campaign is from turn 1 is, declaring war upon Imagawa Clan and their Takeda Allies. I know its sounds crazy, but it is not, at the same time you have to use your superior diplomatic skills and make peace and ally with the Oda clan! Yes, the Oda are your best option to survive and focus you in one part of the map only. They are very strong and usually become stronger within every turn, you have to support the Oda every time you can because if they stay strong you have peace and a good defense against Hattori and Ikko Ikki clans. Your first move has to be to bribe Oda army in your territory (very important to surprise the Imagawa and out them in number).
You have to conquer quickly the Imagawa and take your revenge! Then with the Oda distracting the Takeda you have to take Kai because the Oda will take South Shinano, divide the Takeda territory with de Oda. (You have to support the Oda against thier wars and demand they enter in war with the Takeda in your inicial deal) Dont be affraid to enter in to many wars!
Improve your economy and enter in an alliance with the Hojo Clan (this is only a disguise) They will be surely at war with their 2 neighbours, wait to the outcome of this war and attack in the right moment to the clan who take over the Hojo lands, they will be weak after this war. Continue supporting the Oda until you control the east part of Japan, you surely have a hard time with the Date. But never let the Oda get beat beacuse you are next in the list if this happen.
Then i leave it to you, in real life this to clans where allies to the end but if you want to rule as Shogun you will have to do otherwise sometime.

[vish1990]

nice!

[Saudade of Sunday]

Sooo... what happens when you (sort of) abuse save-scumming?

This.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I started a very hard campaign (with mods) quite a lot of time ago and I've just finished it.
At the beginning, I set a few rules for myself: play every single battle on the battlefield
(yeah, that was insane), no inciting revolts on ungarrisoned castles/provinces (I ended up
provoking 5 in total, of which 4 in mid-late game), no blocking an enemy army with ninjas for
more than 1 turn, no assassinating lone generals when their army was near my troops or borders
(i.e., if I their army was left without a general in a critical situation), no honour hits (so no
looting or backstabbing ever) and no alliances (not counting the forced vassallage to the
Imagawa at the start).

I avoided declaring war on the Imagawa altogether, so, without the ability to declare war on
anyone else, I spent the first 30-ish turns improving my economy by selling military access.
With the money I got, I made Hojo and Takeda break the alliance and the trade agreement with
the Imagawa, and since the former two were allied, they ended up declaring war on the latter
(and on me, of course). During the war I stayed back and used my ninja and monk to damage the
Imagawa's armies as much as possible, and they eventually died. Then I had no masters, so I
started taking back Imagawa's provinces from the Takeda, who, as usual, had other wars going
on and lost the stack they had in the southern coast in a siege against me. Long story short, I
killed off the Takeda, expanded to the east, made peace with the Hojo and then declared war
to a couple minor clans. The Satomi and the Mori got quite big, so I started turtling and
building up armies and economy. At turn 72, this was the situation:



I got all my armies in place, attacked the Satomi and triggered Realm Divide. In 2 turns, I
conquered 8 provinces:



With half Honshu in my hands, I started repelling stacks around Echizen and Omi. I soon got to
Kyoto and started to bulldoze throught the western half of Honshu, while keeping two big fleets
on the northern and southern coast to block naval invasion (losing men to attrition to control
all of the stretch of water from the coast to the limit of the map and repairing every turn was
a real pain).



These are the results:



100% agent success, 100% battles won, 0 units lost, 0 agents lost. All my monks and ninjas are
level 6, I have a level 6 metsuke and a level 6 general. Every single province had land consolidation
in the end, so the income was insane.

Just two words: never again.


Mods used:
- DarthMod v4.4+++ (with increased unit sizes and garrisons)
- Yarkis' Reduced AI Cheating
- Vragos' Skillpoints
- Radious Food Mod v1